How can I make the villagers all look up to me?

He returned home full of confidence to start a sheep-raising business. He built a sheep farm but suffered repeated demolitions. To raise sheep, his family believed he had caused his father's death from anger. What exactly made his business so different?

Lai Xuefeng: Link hands down there, block the sheep.

This is Lai Xuefeng's sheep farm. When the reporter arrived, Lai Xuefeng was taking customers to catch sheep.

Lai Xuefeng: Block it, block it, block the sheep. Block it, don't let it run, link hands and block it. Whoever wants to adopt a sheep, come pick one you like, and we'll tag it. Whichever one you like, everybody come over, don't spread out too much, gather in that corner, come here to choose, this one, this one. Grab it, don't be afraid, let me make a note.

Visitor: This sheep looks much more noble.

Lai Xuefeng: Right. Xiao Dong, come on, this is yours, from now on it's called Xiao Dong.

Visitor: Grab its two legs.

Lai Xuefeng: Don't be afraid.

Visitor: Pin its head.

Child: I can't do it.

Visitor: Don't let it run away.

Lai Xuefeng: I'll tag it for you.

Everyone present today bought this kind of Hu sheep, around 40-odd jin each, for 1,380 yuan. Customers can choose to take them home directly, or have Lai Xuefeng raise them on their behalf; customers pay the feeding costs themselves, and when they want it, Lai Xuefeng is responsible for slaughtering the sheep and mailing it to them.

Visitor: Hold its head.

Lai Xuefeng: What's your name, and what name will you give it later? Let's tag it first.

Visitor: You pick one.

Lai Xuefeng: Pick one, what name?

Child: So hot.

Lai Xuefeng: Then we'll call it So Hot. Grab the sheep's ear, So Hot. Let's take a photo. What's this sheep's name?

Visitor: Duo Duo.

Reporter: Duo Duo, everyone clap, it's called Duo Duo.

Reporter: Why did you choose this one?

Visitor: It's good-looking.

Reporter: What do you think is good-looking about it?

Visitor: Clean and handsome.

Lai Xuefeng: Let me tell you, this one's male, it still has little testicles, just like you have a little penis. Little Duo Duo, bleat for us, Little Duo Duo. From now on uncle will hang a tag on it, a Little Duo Duo tag. This sheep is the one you're raising, and when you have time you can come back and see it.

Child: Scared.

Lai Xuefeng: No need to be scared, no need to be scared.

At the 2015 market price, these Hu sheep could only sell for around 600 yuan, yet Lai Xuefeng actually set a price of 1,380 yuan.

Reporter: Do you think it's worth it?

Visitor: Worth it.

Lai Xuefeng: How about that? See how happy they are buying my sheep.

Reporter: Why so expensive?

Lai Xuefeng: Expensive? Don't you see how overjoyed they are, the kids hugging them, saying Mom I want to buy a sheep, and wanting to give it a name, happy as can be. If it were expensive they wouldn't buy my sheep at all, then it'd be dirt cheap.

Reporter: Can you explain?

Lai Xuefeng: Explain? Then let's go down, sit down and I'll explain it to you properly.

Lai Xuefeng's sheep-raising venture was full of twists and turns. In three years of raising sheep, he built the farm three times and relocated twice, and Lai Xuefeng nearly despaired and thought of suicide. Yet this very person, in just three short years, reached annual sales of more than 4 million yuan. How did he do it?

On October 10, 2015, the reporter went back to Lai Xuefeng's hometown with him. Lai Xuefeng's mother went to the market to buy groceries, but as soon as she got home, she encountered this situation.

Reporter: What did you just say? What's wrong?

Lai Xuefeng: Mom was talking about Dad getting sick, getting sick over my affairs, and she can't talk about it. It's okay.

Lai Xuefeng's younger brother: He angered him to death, angered him to death, right?

Why is the whole family still hung up on the issue of their father being angered into illness? Back in Lai Xuefeng's hometown we also found his father's portrait. What exactly happened?

In March 2013, Lai Xuefeng, who ran an accessories trading company in Yiwu's small commodities market, suddenly returned to his hometown. After 19 years of struggling away from home, he had his own business and savings of more than a million yuan, which in his family counted as bringing glory to his ancestors.

Originally the family was happy to see their son return, but this time Lai Xuefeng did something unexpected: he suddenly pulled up by the roots the 10 mu of orange trees at home that were about to bear profit.

Lai Xuefeng: I pulled out several rows of trees myself, every one bigger than this one, and they were at the fruiting stage, the fruit hanging green, just not yet ripe.

Reporter: How many were planted at the time?

Lai Xuefeng: Around 600 or so, and after I dug them out the trees rotted, people took them for firewood, all bigger than this one, like this root here, this is a smaller tree dug out that year.

This move instantly enraged the whole family. They went to Lai Xuefeng and asked, and only then did they learn that Lai Xuefeng was not going back to Yiwu, but was going to stay home and raise sheep.

Mother: He wanted to come back and raise sheep, without waiting for us to say anything. Whether I told him to do things or not, he wouldn't listen, he insisted on raising them, our whole family disagreed, the whole household was angry to death.

Why would Lai Xuefeng give up a perfectly good accessories business and instead go home to raise sheep?

Lai Xuefeng: For two or three years after SARS the profits were very high, a single order in a year could earn tens of thousands, earning several hundred thousand a year was easy. By the end of 2012 to early 2013, when the financial crisis came, business fell off, dropping slowly, getting worse and worse, until in the end it really couldn't go on, many of us, our older generation doing accessories, all left.

The accessories business was in decline, and Lai Xuefeng kept struggling to find a new way out. By chance, when he went to a restaurant with a friend and chatted with the restaurant owner, Lai Xuefeng discovered this business opportunity.

Visitor: While eating, we got to chatting, he said he did accessories in Yiwu and wanted to come back to start a business. I said raising sheep is sure to make money, once you buy a ewe, the next year it gives birth to lambs, two or three lambs a year.

Lai Xuefeng: By my calculation, one sheep can give birth to three a year, and this sheep sells well on the market, no need for credit, this sheep is a cash transaction, the market is big, and it's repeat consumption. If you eat this sheep today, tomorrow you'll still eat sheep; if you buy a sheep for the New Year this year, next year for the New Year you'll still buy a sheep.